Waimea, Hawaii's Malama Kai Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to ocean stewardship through community service and public education. Begun in 1990 with a ten thousand dollar donation from Jerry Garcia, the foundation raises funds to sponsor projects that help conserve Hawaii's coastal and marine resources and educate people about these resources.

This mid-nineties show exhibits the kind of "nahenahe" Garcia finger picking as well as the brisk country rave-ups that made the Grateful Dead so popular in the islands and endeared them to 70's Hawaiian bands like Billy Kaui & Country Comfort. (The Dead's influence can be clearly heard on CC tunes like Railway Station, Honkey Tonk Wines and Country Palace, etc).

The dead have zero to do with Tiki, and zero to do with John Coltrane. Coltrane was a master musician. The dead are just mediocre, at best. I challenge any deadhead to show me one straight ahead jazz album made by Jerry Garcia and his ilk, where they are handling a majority of the jazz licks. I know he played with brian Bromberg, and other jazz artists like David Grisman, but it was those artists that had the real talent, and not the deadheads.

Arthur Lyman did "leis of jazz". There has always been a connection between Jazz and exotica-but not between 60's pop of any kind (jazz, lounge, exotica, ect.) and the lowbrow folk rock that is the grateful dead.

Back in the 60's, I would like to see any hippies that listened to thier parent's arthur lyman records. I don't think very many exist.

so what is this constant need by people to interject the grateful dead onto a Tiki website? I realize there is a lot of latitude on this site as far as making a connection between punk rock and Tiki (however tenous) but don't you think the grateful dead has about as much to do with tiki as does Jimmy Buffet?

If someone likes the dead, that's great, but by trying to make a connection with Tiki, I feel it helps dilute actual tiki culture, and that is something that has been done too much lately, like by people named Jimmy Buffet. I feel we need to preserve as much of the original intent of Tiki as much as possible, before it's gone forever.

Deadhead culture (and hippy culture) does have some small tie to exotica related items in that the scene has some middle eastern influences, some jamaican influences, and even some African themes. But these all stress the psycadelic aspects of those cultures. Even when there is some supposed link to Hawaii, it is always of the laid back pot smoking mystical Hawaiian triipy artwork variety, be it graphics or music.

Tiki to me, means specifically a fake exotic experience that veers towards kitsch, came from America in the late 40's, 50s and early sixties, and was never meant to be truly mystical in a deep sense, as that the main adherents were people with short hair, ties, normal jobs and they were mostly middle class suburban parents. The equivalent of yuppies in a sense. It's just by chance that the music they listened to (which was ridiculed in the late 70's and ended up in garage sales) turned out to be really cool in retrospect.

I can't speak for a lot of members of TC, but I can guess their backgrounds are similar to mine. late 30's, early 40s. They like Tiki because it reminds them of the better parts of thier youth, when art and life was far more whimsical. Most were probably not into hippy rock, but instead grew up on punk, new wave and alternative music. Discovered tiki later, but grew to love it because it reflects a nicer, less cynical time in thier lifes.